The following formula has been translated by M. Chabas:—
O sheep, son of a sheep! lamb, son of a sheep, that suckest the milk of thy mother the sheep, do not allow the deceased to be bitten by any serpent, male or female, by any scorpion, by any reptile; do not allow their venom to overpower his members. May no deceased male or female penetrate to him! May the shadow of no spirit haunt him! May the mouth of the serpent have no power over him! He, he is the sheep!
O thou which enterest, do not enter into any of the members of the deceased! O thou which killest, do not kill him with thyself! O thou which entwinest, do not entwine thyself round him!
In another incantation, which was directed against various noxious animals, the man who wished to obtain shelter from their attacks invoked the aid of a god, as being himself a god.
Come to me, O lord of Gods!
Drive far from me the lions coming from the earth,
The crocodiles issuing from the river;
Do not wave thy tail;
Do not work thy two arms;
Do not open thy mouth;
Stop crocodile Mako, Son of Set!
In a third formula the enchanter entreats the support of Isis and Nephthys
In order that the jaws of the lions and hyænas may be sealed,
The head of all the animals with long tails,
Who eat flesh and drink blood;
That they may fascinate (me)
To lift up their hearing;
To hold me in darkness
To render me invisible
Instantly in the night!
These magical words did not communicate divine virtue alone to man; animals could also participate in them for the protection of man, as they caused an invincible power to dwell in creatures, like, for instance, the watch-dog, to increase his strength by enchantment, the formula for which commences:
Stand up! wicked dog!
Come! that I may direct thee what to do to-day:
Thou wast fastened up, art thou not untied?
It is Horus who has ordered thee to do this:
May thy face be open to heaven!
May thy jaw be pitiless![189]
Through solemn incantations, through desire and by will power it may thus be possible to strengthen animal-qualities for purposes best known to those who employ such means. A modern writer on occult matters explains the existence of wer-wolves and vampires on some such psychic basis.
"The popular legends about them," he says,[190] "are probably often considerably exaggerated, but there is nevertheless a terribly serious substratum of truth beneath the eerie stories which pass from mouth to mouth among the peasantry of Central Europe.... All readers of Theosophical literature are familiar with the idea that it is possible for a man to live a life so absolutely degraded and selfish, so utterly wicked and brutal, that the whole of his lower Manas may become entirely unmeshed in Kama, and finally separated from its spiritual source in the higher Ego.... To attain the appalling pre-eminence in evil which thus involves the entire loss of a personality and the weakening of the developing individuality behind, a man must stifle every gleam of unselfishness or spirituality and must have absolutely no redeeming points whatever. And when we remember how often, even in the worst of villains there is to be found something not wholly bad, we shall realize that the abandoned personalities must always be a very small minority. Still comparatively few though they be, they do exist and it is from their ranks that the still rarer vampire is drawn...."